Scared of SARS? - Dr.
Weil, 4/8/03 -
"The CDC recommends washing your hands frequently to
guard against infection. This is always good advice, especially during cold
and flu season. These infections spread when sick people touch their noses
or mouths and then touch surfaces such as doorknobs, telephones or elevator
buttons. If you’re the next one to touch these objects, you can pick up the
bug"

World Health Organization Asks: Can SARS Be Eradicated Or Eliminated? -
Doctor's Guide, 6/20/03 -
"Experience with many other infectious diseases,
including smallpox and poliomyelitis, has demonstrated that complete
eradication of an infectious disease is possible only when three precise
requirements can be met ... First, an effective intervention capable of
interrupting transmission - ideally, a vaccine - must be available. Second,
easy-to-use diagnostic tools are needed, with sufficient sensitivity and
specificity to detect levels of infection that can lead to transmission of
the disease. Finally, infection of humans must be essential to the
life-cycle of the causative agent - if the chain of human-to-human
transmission is broken, the agent cannot survive"

CDC Issues SARS
Travel Alert for Toronto - WebMD, 4/22/03 -
"The CDC has issued a new travel alert for travelers
to Toronto, which is the epicenter of the Canadian outbreak of SARS (severe
acute respiratory syndrome) that has infected 139 people and caused 13
deaths in that country" - That's almost a 10% fatality rate.

The Long Shadow Of SARS - CBS News, 4/22/03 -
"And it gets worse. There are some researchers who
think the virus can mutate - indeed, it may already have done so. That means
any treatment that works today could be useless tomorrow. And because it's a
virus, like the common cold, there is no "cure.""

SARS Likely Spread Through Pipes - Intelihealth, 4/17/03 -
"A SARS patient with diarrhea infected other people
in a Hong Kong apartment complex as the disease apparently spread into homes
through a sewage pipe linked to poorly sealed water drains"

Experts Predict Spread Of Mystery Illness - Intelihealth, 4/7/03 -
"many experts reluctantly conclude it is likely if
not inevitable that it eventually will spread everywhere ... While many are
infected through face-to-face contact, evidence is mounting that the virus
may also spread through the air or be picked up from contaminated surfaces
... it could grow less virulent as it reproduces inside the human body and
then passes on, or it might grow worse"

China Kept SARS Secret - CBS News, 4/7/03 -
"The world might not have noticed SARS, except for
what happened at the Metropole Hotel in Hong Kong. A Chinese doctor, unaware
he was infected, traveled there. Somehow, maybe something as ordinary as
coughing in a crowded elevator, he passed the infection on to a half-dozen
people from various countries. Among them was a couple visiting from
Toronto, Canada ... They boarded flights home and SARS started spreading at
the speed of a jet plane"